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Walpole Island's Jasper John, shown here on April 18, 2012, watched over Tecumseh's bones before they were buried at the Walpole Island Cairn almost 75 years ago. DAVID GOUGH/COURIER PRESS/QMI AGENCY paginators please use this version David Gough/Courier Press/couriernews@bowesnet.com Walpole Island's Jasper John watched over Tecumseh's bones before they were buried at the Walpole Island Cairn almost 75 years ago.

John, an 87-year old Walpole Island resident knows this because he was there when the warrior chief, who was killed at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813, was buried at Walpole Island's Cairn. He also watched over the bones, before they were buried, for a number of days as a 14-year-old so that they wouldn't get stolen.

John, a retired construction worker, read with interest a story in the April 12 Courier Press about Betty Lou Snetselaar, an amateur historian from Lambton County who said Tecumseh is buried at Walpole Island.

Snetselaar is making her claim based on old newspaper clippings and the opinion of two doctors who years ago reconstructed a skeleton exhumed from a gravesite said to belong to Tecumseh.

Tecumseh's final burial site has remained a mystery over the past few decades.

Snetselaar has claimed that Tecumseh was buried at Walpole Island's Cairn based on conversations she has had with First Nation members and old newspaper stories.

John backs up what Snetselaar has said.

As a teenager he was asked to help bring the bones to Walpole Island to be buried.

John said he was not sure how the bones got to Walpole Island.

"That I don't know. Everything was a secret. We were sworn to secrecy"

John watched over Tecumseh's bones at the old Anglican church parish hall for a weekend.

"I stayed there for three nights. They told me to stay there until they came back."

He later had to move the bones to a barn to keep them safe before they were buried at the Cairn monument.

"They told me that people were coming to get the bones, as they knew where they were. So we moved them."

John later helped bring the bones to Tecumseh's final resting place.

"I helped," John said.

John said the group members who had the bones were sworn to secrecy about where they were located and how they were obtained.

John said he is the only remaining member of the group that helped with Tecumseh's burial who is still living.

He said Tecumseh's bones were in a box, with sand and cement on top of the box.

"The cement is quite thick."

John said the group buried Tecumseh's bones the day after the ceremony was held for the monument.

Reading the story in the Courier Press spurred John to recall the burial.